The launch of the Radeon HD 5800-series desktop parts puts the Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 three generations behind, yet cancellations of Asus' ill-fated Radeon HD 4870 X2-based W90VP notebook models may have once again put it at the top of AMD’s mobile graphics portfolio. It’s not like the competition has gotten tougher, since Nvidia's GeForce GTX 200M-series offerings are re-branded two generation-old desktop parts. And while we expect AMD to eventually put its newfound 2D energy efficiency to good use in a notebook GPU, we don’t like to hold our breath waiting for product announcements (an editor once popped a blood vessel doing this).

This was the harsh climate buyers faced a few months ago when Nvidia launched an efficiency-enhanced version of its desktop 8800 GTS 512 as a 1GB model named GTX 280M. The article that claimed high praise for its brutal honesty was equally panned for its lack of comparison to Mobility 4870 X2—a solution that, as ATI's mobile product page indicates, no longer technically exists. Several editors continued scouring the industry for anyone willing to pony up with ATI’s most powerful mobile graphics solution, and a multitude of requests were finally answered by an unlikely source when white-box supplier ASI stepped up to the plate.

Available with dual Mobility Radeon HD 3870 graphics cards for around $1,300, the only “catch” to the ASI IQ17 gaming notebook is that buyers must be willing to either install their own Socket P mobile CPU, DDR3 memory, and hard drives or source their system through one of ASI's reseller partners.

That values the hardware of our as-delivered test system to around $2,480, complete with a Core 2 Extreme X9100 CPU, two Toshiba MK3254GSY 320GB hard drives, and two Crucial CT25664BC1067 DDR3-1066 memory modules. If you have someone else order the same parts and add the operating system, expect to pay around $2,800-$3,000, including installation fees.